Koshur Saal, Kashmiri Cuisine at Hornby’s Pavilion, ITC, Mumbai

If you’re a Kashmiri living in Bombay or are interested in Kashmiri cuisine, you’ve until 26 May to sample Chef Suman Kaul’s preparations for dinner at ITC Grand Central’s Hornby’s Pavilion. 

Food is an occasion to connect, with self, and with people. It’s a reason to explore traditions, invest in a culture that shaped the cuisine, and revel in the happiness that appreciation of patrons brings to the chef, in this instance Mrs. Suman Kaul of ITC Kakatiya currently in charge of Kashmiri Food Festival at ITC Grand Central.

Unlike Punjabi cuisine that’s found in every nook and corner restaurant around Mumbai, served up to each cook’s own reading of the recipe, Kashmiri cuisine is conspicuous by its near total absence in roadside restaurants with the exception of what passes of as Kashmiri pulao, regular pulao you’d expect to find at restaurants, only this one is prepared with smattering of fruits that varies depending on what’s available in the restaurant kitchen on the day. The Kashmiri pulao has been my only introduction to Kashmiri cuisine, one I suspected is Kashmiri in name only.

I was looking forward to the opportunity to find out what the Kashmiri pulao actually tasted like at Koshur Saal, the Kashmiri cuisine festival currently underway at ITC Grand Central’s Hornby’s Pavilion (17^th – 26^th May, 2013), to which we were invited to partake of Kashmiri culinary delights, except the Kashmiri pulao was not on the menu the day of our visit, having featured on the menu the day before!

So I suppose I’ll have to wait for another day, another time to find out. Kashimiri pulao aside, there was much else on offer, none of which I had heard of before let alone taste any, and it was as much a learning experience for the palate as it was an evening of getting to know Suman Kaul and her husband over dinner along with Arundhati, where they kept plying us with Kashmiri food and stories of food.

“My grandmother, Sati Razdan,” said Suman Kaul when I asked her of the person who got her interested in cooking. “We’re from Srinagar,” she said. “We had our house there. That was before we had to leave Kashmir,” she continued, her voice trailing off abruptly at what must be memories of a land lost, of memories orphaned by a virulent campaign that significant sections of  Kashmiri Muslims waged to get the Pandits, Kashmir’s original inhabitants insofar as religious heritage is concerned, out of the valley.

At one level, stepping into Hornby’s Pavilion for Koshur Saal was about solidarity with Kashmiri Pandit heritage that has survived the jihadi onslaught on their identity. And in sharing their cuisine and interacting with the wonderful couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kaul, it was about bringing home a better understanding of a cuisine, and by consequence, the people for, food does define ethnic identity in many ways.  Here I leave my ‘pen’ aside and let the other take over.

~

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”

           ~ George Bernard Shaw

Synonymous with Kashmir’s picturesque beauty is its aperitive native cuisine more so the Kashmiri Pandit Cuisine. From the land of saffron and red chillies comes Koshur Saal at The Hornby’s Pavilion at ITC Grand Central. On their invitation we visited them for a special Kashmiri Pandit culinary experience. Authentic Kashmiri food was served, with recipe which dates back to hundreds of years and ITC Grand Central is one place which has never compromised on quality. Some ingredients like collard greens for Haak, the famous Red Cherries of Kashmir and fish used for Tsok Gaad (fish in tamarind sauce) which are not available in Mumbai were transported from Srinagar to my surprise.

Festival had a sumptuous Kashmiri buffet selection for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, featuring a fresh selection of Murg Sufyani Tikka and Veg Shammi Kebab accompanied with mint chutney and Sattaras (Lamb Soup). 

There was a carving buffet station for freshly made Green Apple and Potato Fritters (pakoras). Green apples are a Kashmiri speciality and they were perfectly thin sliced and battered in gram flour to deep fry and get a unique juicy crispy texture to them.

For the main course the la carte menu had both vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes which were without onion and garlic which is a speciality of Kashmiri cuisine. The gravies are pretty hassle free with usage of hung curd, sometimes tomatoes and occasionally tamarind for sourness. "Preparing gravies in Kashmiri cuisine is a lengthy process as they are simmered for hours with ambrosial flavour of spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, aniseed, fennel powder, cumin seeds, saffron, dry ginger, turmeric and to top it all hing (asafoetida)," Chef Suman Kaul exclaimed with a twinkle in her eye before continuing, "hing to hamari jaan hai as it gives the required flavour to the slowly simmered non-veg dishes."

For the vegetariano in me the buffet had a lot to offer. My favourite was the Nadur Yakhni, i.e. lotus stem in yoghurt. This delicacy was perfectly sober, crunchy and juicy, with a vinegarish taste. Guess the taste came from yogurt simmered for good few hours with spices. Hedder Aluro (mushrooms cooked with potatoes in kashmiri style) was a lovely combination of two vegetables. 

Dum Monje (knol khol in kashmiri style) had a distinctive flavour and is one of the first European vegetables grown in India and it grows well in kashmir valley region. The Kurkure Bhindi (crispy ladyfingers) were so crispy and fried to perfection in mustard oil. For cottage cheese lovers there was Tomato Chammar (paneer cooked in tomato gravy).

For the meat eaters there was the most famous Kashmiri dish Nainey Qualiya (lamb in yellow gravy Kashmiri style), Kabargarh (lamb ribs marinated and fried in ghee).Chicken even not  quintessentially Kashmiri, has slowly gained acceptance with youngsters. Gandee Kokur (chicken with onion) is worth a try according to  Chef Kaul.

The staple diet of every Kashmiri is rice, the most preferred being the dense, slightly sticky grained variety. Rich and redolent with the flavour of the spices used there was Nainey Pulao ( rice cooked with lamb in Kashmiri style) for the meat eaters and the perfectly cooked steam rice for the veggie in me was on the menu of the special buffet at ITC grand central.

On the sweet note there was the all time favourite Shufta which is a lavish assortment of dry fruits mixed with honey, sugar and saffron and a mesmerising dish called Zuk-e-Shahi which was khoya dumplings soaked in sweetened milk.

It's been a long day for Suman Kaul but the prospect of introducing her native cuisine to the city and have  visitors acquire a taste for it must be a satisfying experience. Back home in Kashmir, the Pandits after returning home on a tired cold day would've had their Kehwah (sweet green tea with almonds and cardamom) post which they would gather for their dinner and at the end of the meal would sip Sheer chai (salted pink tea with almonds), more of a digestive drink, before inching toward the end of the day. The rest of us non-Kashmiris, returning home from this outing would've no such luck. I make a mental note of checking out Sheer chai someday.

"At any given time we would've 10-15 people gathering for food at our place, to taste my grandma's cooking," Mrs. Kaul told us of her relatives visiting their place in Srinagar, remembering her time in Kashmir before they had flee for their lives. "I've never been back there after we had to leave Kashmir."

Mrs. Kaul credited her husband for unflinching support through her career. At the Koshur Saal, they relished the opportunity of meeting fellow Kashmiris over dinner at Hornby's Pavilion. I'm sure many stories will have been exchanged of things back 'home', of food, of memories from Kashmir, wistful and poignant.   

Kali Rides

That evening in Calcutta we wandered aimlessly among people and before long I found myself seeking the boats that’d take Durga home.

But as I walked towards the ghat on the river, the waters pulled away from me as if intimidated by my presence, retreating slowly but surely, pushing at the land on the other side until they could push no more. Confused, I paused and wondered - How was I culpable?

That’s until I saw Kali riding on the banks.

Then I understood.

Sooni Taraporevala’s 'Parsis' Exhibits at Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Mumbai

The Mystic Piano Tuner, Mr. Ratnagar, Bombay, 1985  

Photography often draws on different sentiments to connect the viewer emotionally with the images on display. While the degree of the connect with photographs is often determined by how closely the viewer can directly relate to the subjects photographed, it can however be extended to include the associations the viewer has made with their own impressions of the subjects over the years, impressions largely based on the portrayal of the subjects in different mediums of mass consumption, films, literature, and the media.

Add to it the viewer’s own infrequent personal experiences involving the photographed subjects, and curiosity goes up a notch, seeking to “know more” about ‘them’. And when mass media screams ‘a community on the verge of extinction’ the curiosity acquires an urgency as if goading a potential gallery visitor into “go and see them before they disappear” will somehow deign to pull “them” back from the brink – “them” being the Parsis.

And so I believe was partly the reason that drew me into visiting Sooni Taraporevala’s photography exhibition “Parsis”, currently underway at Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Fort, Mumbai. The exhibition of photographs ends on 6 April [now EXTENDED to 4 May]. Visit it.

The point is – motivation to go and see a photography exhibition must necessarily derive from more than a mere “let’s see what the photography exhibition is about”, and must instead spring from a personal frame of reference that can extend the experience of seeing the photography on display beyond mere frames. It must necessarily widen the viewer’s frame of reference to acquire further meaning to the motivation that originally enthused them into making the trip to the gallery. It should at some level strengthen existing sentiments positively and make the experience memorable.

~

When Krishna and I made our way to the Chemould Gallery in Fort to see Sooni’s portrayal of the Parsis, we did so with mixed feelings.

While we were curious of a glimpse into a well respected community framed by one of their own, we were aware of the tenuousness of the link that now binds the Parsis with their adopted homeland, India, given the steady decline in their numbers over the years, imbuing our visit with a touch of poignancy.

To step into the gallery to see the Parsis was to do two things at once – see them in a way that few ‘outsiders’ have managed to, delighting in the charming simplicity of Sooni’s portrayal of a gentle and genteel community seemingly at ease with mores that characterised the past than those of a turbulent present, and reflect over an illustrious legacy made all the more poignant by fears, not all of which are unfounded, concerning their survival as a vibrant community of traders, businessmen, artists, art patrons, educators, industrialists, philanthropists and the like.

Unlike other photography exhibitions I’ve been to before, I stepped into the Chemould Gallery not expecting to be surprised as I’m wont to do with photography exhibitions, but rather seeking to reinforce and strengthen or reorient my own impressions of the Parsis gathered over the years, most notably from the books Trying to Grow and Tales From Firozsha Baug by Firdaus Kanga and Rohinton Mistry respectively, both Parsis, and as also from Rohinton Mistry’s other celebrated book, Such a Long Journey.

Then there were the films revolving around the Parsi community – Pestonjee [1987], and Percy [1985], the latter a Gujarati language film adapted from Cyrus Mistry’s short story. I saw Percy on Doordarshan many years ago, and for some reason the film haunts to this day.

And who can forget the kindly souls, Parsi widowers Homi Mistry and Nargis Sethna, from Basu Chatterjee’s Khatta Meetha (1978). Khatta Meetha engaged audiences with the light-hearted ‘turmoil’ that stirs up when both families learn of Homi Mistry’s impending marriage with Nargis Sethna. Then there was Basu Chatterjee’s other film Baaton Baaton Mein (1979). Need I say more?

While I haven’t seen Little Zizou, Sooni Taraporevala’s own film portraying her community, I was as a result doubly curious and keen to go see her photography show. She’s done well with her portrayals, more so with her B&W images than colour.

In some ways, at a sub-conscious level I must’ve been seeking to put a face to the characters appearing in these books and films while also hoping the faces would be framed in the settings I had come to imagine from their descriptions in literature and films portraying the community.

~

Chemould Presscott Road is a large gallery by Bombay standards. a wooden staircase leads up the old Raj era building.

We took an old lift up three floors. On the wall along the stairwell hang posters from past exhibitions, several from as long back as the 1960s.

One could linger around the framed posters for, many belong to artists who were beginning their journeys back then when they were little known. Many of those names are now feted and grace India’s Art Scene as mastheads, their works drawing phenomenal sums.

The posters are simply made, with none of the flourish one has come to expect in these days of digital technology.

One of the posters announces the opening of the late M. F. Husain’s Impressions Of Kabul, a series of drawings exhibited at the Chemould Gallery between August 18-31, 1965. 

A large door let us in. And like with the posters we go back in time, to a Bombay of a timeless variety.

Upon entering the gallery, the section to the left is announced thus:

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

The section showcases photographs of eminent Parsis, some of whom are well know across India, notable among them JRD Tata, Dr. Homi Bhaba, Dr. Homi Sethna, Field Marshall Sam Maneckshaw, Nani Palkhivala, the pioneering photographer Ms. Homai Vyarawala.

Among the famous names are photographs of other lesser known members of the community, now departed; among them photographers Sam Tata, Pandit Firoz Dastur, cricketer Polly Umrigar, Ratan Modi, Behram Contractor (Busybee) and Sooni’s grandfather Ader Tareporevala at Bora and Mebsons having his fountain pens repaired pause my eye, centring the gaze on faces.

The B&W image showing Band leader and accordionist Goody Seervai playing his accordion in front of the mike sporting ‘Chicago Radio’ at what appears to be an event is particularly interesting. In this picture on mute I can imagine the accordion lending its voice to the evening.

In the context of the community, the label ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’ rung an ominous tone.

Most of the photographs show the Parsis up and about in Bombay, framing their lives in the unrelenting chaos of the city even as it sheltered many a quiet corner or so I believe because a picture can cut out the chaos beyond the frame.  

But surely the elderly Parsi woman standing in the door and throwing her head back and laughing away behind the shoulder high gate in Poona must live in a quiet lane, of the kind one might associate with older parts of Mumbai which in turn many would readily associate with the Parsis even if the demographic has changed from back then.

Parsis and quiet kind of go together, atleast in the public eye for it’d take a brave man to bet his last rupee on it. The pictures on display however reinforce this impression. Maybe it has to do with the age group Sooni has portrayed, mostly the elderly, and by consequence, a certain quiet dignity within the frame.

It’s easy to imagine an old neighbourhood when looking at the pictures, neighbourhoods that’ve been spared the hullabaloo of thriving neighbourhoods home to migrant communities as opposed to long-time residents.

While people lend their personality to the place, the opposite can be equally true. Neighbourhoods lend their character to the people who live in there.

I was particularly taken in by the B&W photographs framing the community in Navsari, and Udvada in Gujarat.

For some reason the B&W image of a Parsi family on the terrace of Cozy building showing two elderly Parsi gentlemen lounging in chairs while a middle-aged man with prominent sideburns, a half-smile playing on his lips, leans over the parapet, looking down on the lane below reminded me of Freddie Mercury even though there was little or no similarity between the explosive Parsi rocker and the serenity on this man’s face.

Walking along the gallery walls, each simultaneously a revelation and the imagined, it’s impossible not to be moved by the images the photographs evoke in the mind’s eye, images that don’t exist on the walls but are instead extended by the viewer’s own perception of a ancient people, their lives, and their ways.   

~

Queens Mansion, Prescott Road, Fort

In some ways, it is perhaps fitting that the Chemould Gallery currently exhibiting Sooni Taraporevala’s photography exhibition “Parsis” is barely a stone’s throw away from the J. B. Petit High School for Girls on Maharishi Dadhichi Marg in Fort.

Designed by George Twigge in the Italian Gothic style, the well known girl’s school was built in 1860 and was originally known as Ms. Prescott’s Fort Christian School, admitting students irrespective of caste, creed, and ethnic origin.

Among the school’s benefactors at the time was Premchand Roychand whose generous donation of Rs. 50,000 toward the construction of the girl’s school came with a rider that when it came to admitting Indian girls to the planned school there’d be restriction on their numbers nor would they be turned away on account of inability to pay fees.

It was this condition that the well known Parsi businessman, Jehangir Bomonjee Petit, would later use effectively in the High Court when arguing against the handing over of the school, by then renamed to Frere-Fletcher School, to Cathedral Girl’s School when faced with serious financial difficulties threatening its survival.

Jehangir Bomonjee Petit argued that Cathedral Girl’s School discriminated against Indian students and that handing Ms. Prescott’s Fort Christian School over to Cathedral’s Girl’s School would breach the conditions laid out by one of its original benefactors, Premchand Joychand.

Subsequently the school was turned over to the Parsi gentleman J. B. Petit and a Board of Trustees in 1921. Upon Jehangir B. Petit’s demise, it was renamed after him. The name still stands – J. B. Petit high School for Girls.

As benefactors, businessmen and individuals, the Fort precinct is in many ways synonymous with the Parsis. The D. N. Road that the lane in which the J. B. Petit Girl’s School stands is itself named after Dadabhai Nowroji, a Parsi. He was     

The leafy lane bridges D. N. Road to the east, and M. G. Road to the west, together home to imposing 19^th century buildings constructed in various architectural styles using local building material, stones named Porbunder, Hemnagar, and Kurla.

It’s approaching late afternoon when Krishna and I find our way to the Queen’s Mansion on Prescott Road after first taking the opposite lane past J. B. Petit High School.

                                                               Opposite Queens Mansion, Prescott Road, Fort

From the sidewalk the Raj era stone buildings rise stolidly. Where trees do not obscure their facades, parked buses and tempos do. On the pavement lined by trees a young couple is cosying up in the shade of a tree, seeking privacy between the tree and a parked school bus. The girl is in the all enveloping black burka and hurriedly withdraws from the embrace as we pass them, giggling as she does so.

I wish I had carried by DSLR camera along.

It’s not enough to capture the moment in the mind’s eye if the moment is to be preserved for posterity of sorts.

Sooni must’ve realised the need for it somewhere along the way. And I’m glad she did.

Note: Sooni Tareporevala’s Parsis is currently on at the Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Fort, Mumbai until 6 April [now EXTENDED to 4 May].

It’s worth going a long way to see it.

Prayer Time At Delhi’s Jama Masjid

As the clock struck 4, a barely perceptible crackle over the public address system soon turned into a mellifluous call to prayer at Delhi's Jama Masjid.

I sat on a raised platform facing the historic masjid in old Delhi. The platform ran east-west along the length of the quadrangle enclosing a large courtyard where visitors milled about and joyous children scattered hundreds of feeding pigeons into the sky to watch them circle overhead before settling down once again among the grains an old Muslim man in a skull cap had spread in the middle of the courtyard.

Click Play to listen to the muezzin at prayer time in Delhi's Jama Masjid 

Visitors continued to stream in through the towering southern entrance. I let the muezzin’s magic work over me. After hours on foot through Delhi’s crowded gallis here was a voice that made space I could meander in without leaving my seat on the platform.

Behind me, framed in ornamented arches that looked out to the Red Fort in the distance two Muslim women in burqa sat cross-legged on the stone floor offering prayers from their holy book. The Urdu letters were visible from where I sat several feet away. Not once did they look up from the book in the time I was there.

The soft afternoon Sun slanted across the platform, echoing the warmth the muezzin's call to prayer lent the vanishing day.

David Rocco’s Dolce India Swings By ITC Grand Central, Mumbai

I learned of David Rocco’s Mumbai visit to film his new series in India centred on food only recently. Scheduled to be broadcast on FOX Traveller, his India episodes are said to be along the lines of his charming Dolce Vita episodes in Italy, exploring kitchens and restaurants, and people and places. A quick swing by ITC Grand Central and I’d have gotten a glimpse of his team at work only that I couldn’t get time off from office, so couldn't attend.

But I knew of someone who did and the account that follows is in K’s own words of the wine evening David Rocco hosted on ITC’s rooftop lounge recently.    

~

Until the kindly gentleman with a beatific smile said his name softly I had taken to addressing him as Mr. Bean after hearing his colleagues do the same.

“I’m Jay Bajaj,” the kindly man corrected me, his smile rarely leaving his face in the minutes we made acquaintance. He was settled on a sofa in ITC Grand Central’s split-level rooftop lounge - Point Of View on the 30^th floor.

The lounge connected the open air gazebo on both wings, each home to a pavilion raised on a platform.

Behind him a row of high stools stood against the counter where smartly dressed bar tenders catered to guests. Gleaming bottles of spirits shone on racks in the warm light that suffused the cozy lounge equipped with a library and a boardroom. Large windows opened to the city outside. 

Visitors were seated at tables conversing in low tones, their bags on the floor resting against their chairs.

Jay Bajaj crossed his legs and stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, a sign he was relieved to be back somewhere warm, hospitable and retiring.

David Rocco’s production team was in Mumbai wrapping up filming in the metropolis for their show Dolce India scheduled to air on Fox Traveller starting September later this year.

Jay Bajaj was taking a well deserved pause while his colleagues were setting up cameras and other equipment while scouting the ITC Grand Central for footage and vantage points as the evening gradually wound upstairs to the rooftop lounge where David Rocco was scheduled to host a wine tasting event for select invitees.

I reached the ITC Grand Central located on a busy road in Parel, early, and it was just as well for, while the evening was to culminate in a wine tasting event with David Rocco, I was equally interested if not more in seeing his production team plan a shoot for his new television series David Rocco’s Dolce India exploring India on the lines of David Rocco’s Dolce Vita that’s made Season Four, a sign of its appeal and success.

India however is alien to David Rocco, an experiment, a challenge. I’ll only know if he’s made the cut once the cameras stop rolling and the promos hit the airwaves ahead of its broadcast.

For now I was curious to see what transpires in the making of a TV series episode given the success the celebrity TV host has had with his charming escapades in Italy stringing viewers along on his jaunts through Italy’s cultural and culinary landscapes. It didn’t really matter that the evening atop ITC Grand Central’s rooftop lounge might probably find only a passing reference and look-in when David’s team sits down to see the rushes with digital scissors at hand.

I was there for the experience of seeing and meeting with the show’s host and carry back memories of his production team working to make the India series happen. 

The setting at ITC Grand Central’s rooftop lounge the perfect antidote to the rush of the Mumbai street outside, contributing just the right setting to the evening even if the gathering was smaller than I expected.     

The ITC Grand Central where part of the footage was planned on the Mumbai leg of his four-city dash around India was an apt setting for a wine tasting evening given the views its split-level rooftop lounge Point Of View affords its guests gathered under the Mumbai sky to meet with David holding his fort with Indian wines.

In the open air gazebo, workers were busy preparing the pavilion for the evening, beautifying it with flowers.

The late afternoon Sun cast its glow around. David’s production team was up and about testing their equipment and looking for spots to best film the event.

A cameraman stood by the parapet and took in the view of Mumbai, high rises interspersing with low rise residential apartment blocks, together forming waves that rode for a long way out.  

The wind was beginning to pick up. It would grow stronger as the evening progressed.

He would later tell me that it was only a couple of days ago that he’d learned India makes its own wines; the surprise was equally evident on his twitter feed drawing a wry comment from a quip gently chiding David not to “undermine India” before smiley-ingly asserting “we can make quite a few things”. He probably meant “underestimate”, not “undermine”. To which David responded he didn’t ‘undermine India’ before implying he was in India ‘to find out just what things we make here,’ starting with Chennai down south.

The stops – Chennai, Mumbai, Jaipur, and New Delhi.

~

The team had just flown into Mumbai from Chennai to shoot on locations around the city in the days ahead. A quick trip to Nashik for a tour of Fratelli Winery was to culminate in an evening with wine, Indian wine in particular; Fratelli to be specific.

Leave alone the rest of the world, Nashik is not as well known around India either with the exception of Maharashtrians and those who know their Ramayana well. And knowledge of vineyards operating out of Nashik is an even longer shot outside of wine aficionados, some of whom wear Italian hats.  

It was in Nashik that Sita was abducted by Ravana while Lord Ram was on exile from Ayodhya.

If you’re visiting Nashik in the winter, few sights on Nashik’s streets overwhelm the visitor as much as basket loads of grapes being sold off the street.

Nashik grapes inveigle the visitor the moment they step out the railway station.

Take a bus out of Nashik proper for Trimbakeshwar and the countryside is host to sights of farmers selling their produce roadside in the backdrop of their vineyards.

But I suspect David’s experiences with India as a wine making destination is going to come up against those from his Dolce Vita episodes with Italian wine making traditions. No guesses to who’d win that.

If anything, more people than before will begin to associate India with wines once his India series goes on air. Not a bad beginning.

Speaking with him later that evening he said he was initially under the impression that Indians drink beer and that if Indians made wine it probably wasn’t that good.

Then there were the regulars from down South - “I liked the dosas, the chutneys, and the people. The people are amazing,” he said sharing his general impression, adding that he didn’t have a good experience at the fish market. The inedible smells grounded him.

Indians can find it difficult to beat the stench of open toilets in the summer, let alone someone whose TV series Dolce Vita promos paint vividly how to live the good life in Italy.

It’d be too much to expect David to wind through local Indian markets and not try his hand at bargaining with the vendors.

“They asked for a cauliflower, 40 rupees. I brought it down to 25. Then he brought me up to 30, and then I threw in a couple of chillies. That was a good deal.”

Who wouldn't smile through the day after bargaining a good deal? I would. And I do it as well with the local vendors.
    

~

His TV series David Rocco’s Dolce Vita has made four seasons and has aired in over 150 countries and counting, taking viewers on a vicarious tour of Italy exploring its cities and countryside for social, cultural and culinary encounters where, as David says on his website, “As always, the starting point is food,” before elaborating with “The show is also about how food brings friends and family together.”

Even if I hadn’t seen the section “My Italy” on David’s website that he begins with “Hey! This is my guide to my favourite country in the world,” it took me only a few minutes of conversation with him to realise that while he’s left Italy to visit India, he’s never really left Italy. This was notwithstanding the impression the man in maroon down south in Chennai made on him as he raised him arm holding a vessel with coffee as high as it could go while the other arm holding a second vessel descended low before letting the coffee cascade like a waterfall from the height he’d mustered with his right hand.

The smiling South Indian proudly displaying his coffee making skills is featured prominently on David’s site even if not everything about Chennai enamoured him.

One impression does not make an entire experience. And India is no Italy. It was not meant to be.

To know what I mean you only have to watch Dolce Vita’s Season Three trailer set in Italy.   

The Legwork Behind Making Dolce Vita - India

Where diversity, of the kind India is home to, entices, it equally challenges, more so given David has little to no experience with India personally, probably does not speak any Indian language, relying entirely on India hands to scout locales to capture India’s essence in the show’s format – food, markets, people, places, and cuisine, daring failure in attempting a fusion of Indian and Italian dishes.

While his site announced his Dolce Vita road show as “our guide to all things Italian,” before adding, “This is a great resource if you're planning a trip to Italy. I've recommended some of my favourite places to eat and sleep, in some of my favourite cities and areas in Italy. Some are fancy, some are simple, some just family run establishments, and all are worth visiting!”

To pull this off with his Indian series would need local knowledge.

It’s here that Jay Bajaj stepped in to smooth over hassles common to locating people and locales to shoot street-side episodes for travel shows. Speaking with Jay as we waited for David to kick start the evening gave a peek behind the ‘finished work’ eventually broadcast on TV.  

Jay elaborated on the challenge he faced with the team in exploring India for locations to shoot, people to feature. Four Indian cities, each different from the other, can present different challenges even if the show format driving the content is the same.

Jay spoke of how he wasn’t entirely sure of which story would eventually work even though he had nine stories to work with.

“We had to change one of the stories yesterday because one of the people wasn’t there,” Jay offered as example of how scripts even when bound can come unglued. “We were thinking of doing a story,” he continued, referring to another story planned, “But now we’re in a hurry, so it’s constantly changing. Tomorrow, David’ll be doing PR while I’ll be out looking for people and places.”

Apparently, the idea for the India series was first broached to Jay by David last April after David phoned Jay to sound him out for the series. Initially Jay wasn’t too enamoured by the thought of getting involved in “all that food series” but David prevailed over Jay.

To know why Jay wasn’t exactly thrilled at first of a series involving food one doesn’t have to go further than Jay’s own 72-minute documentary feature Qawwali – A Musical Journey that he wrote, directed and produced in 2003 for his own banner – Bajaj Films.

The documentary film was a musical journey through his own childhood memories, Jay accompanied Hayat Nizami - whose family has been performing Qawaali for five generations - and his group of Qawaals through Delhi, the capital of India, as they go in for a recording session, talk about their music and share its importance in their lives, and sing at different historical locations around the city. The film paints a vivid picture in sound and sight of the music, its history, and its home.

Later, I listened to a Qawaali from Jay’s film Qawwali – A Musical Journey. The haunting invocation stayed with me long after the voice had gone silent.

After speaking with David, Jay realised it’d be fun doing the India TV series Dolce India though he admitted that he wasn’t entirely sure at first if David could pull it off, likely for the obvious reasons of land and language and the baggage that comes with it.

Once the ball got rolling and Jay found himself in the thick of things, the logistical legwork well and truly began, starting with identifying sponsors, ITC among them, scouting for locations and locales, story ideas, people, permissions and the whole works.

“I’ve been here (India) since September 18,” Jay said. The fact that he remembers the date is an indication that it’s been anything but a smooth sailing. “A good 5-6 months.”

David’s team is scheduled to be filming its episodes until April before leaving India and beginning work on post-production that’s expected to carry on until September, just shy of the dates they expect the series to go on air.

“13 episodes in all,” Jay lets on.

Talking of the editing process and the time it takes, he makes mention of Kunal Vijaykar’s show and of how they shoot for four hours in a day but take close to five days editing the footage.

Switching back to the work ahead of his team, he tells of how they shoot their episodes, each involving extensive shoots across locations over a minimum of three days before beginning post-production, all in all a lengthy process.

“We submit all 13 episodes to the broadcaster and they set up a date to begin broadcasting the episodes. In the West, National Geographic will broadcast our show, while elsewhere, Fox Traveller will carry it,” Jay concluded just as David finished meeting his team gathered in the lounge, exchanging courtesies with a few invites, posing for pictures, before everyone followed him to the open terrace of the Point Of View rooftop lounge to commence the evening event everyone had come together for.

By then the equipment was in place, boom mikes at the ready, and racks of wine bottles and glasses held centre stage.

The sun had slipped down the horizon save the last flames licking the skies over the Grand Central in gentle colours.

Starters had made their appearance: a variety of cheeses, and hummus shared space with cold cuts.

After rolling with the production team preparing for the shoot earlier that evening, I cast my lot with the crowd for the last act of the evening – David weaving his way about, sips of wine punctuating the banter, navigating looping smiles under the city sky, not unlike the style he’s adopted for his Dolce Vita series.

Raageshwari Loomba, formerly a singer and actress made an appearance with Farzana Contractor, the Editor of Uppercrust, India’s Food, Wine & the Good Life magazine.

The gathering gravitated toward the spread for the evening, asparagus, pita bread, artichokes, olives, salmon, cheeses and wines.

~

The Point Of View lounge as the name suggests offers a tantalising view of the Mumbai skyline for many a mile around in Parel, the Central Mumbai suburb once the hub of Mumbai’s textile mills that had propelled the city to the very forefront of India’s textile industry besides transforming Mumbai from a predominantly port city into an industrial hub.

From Point Of View, the ruins of United India Mills rise in the distance across the Lalbaug flyover. Chawls with their distinctive projecting balconies, once home to mill workers and their families, and now their descendants, are set back from the road. Together they offer the viewer a peep into the past of a city that rose on the strength of its industry, the textile mills.

The textile mills and the culture and traditions they engendered are long gone, only surviving in the large dilapidated structures that remind the viewer of a past that was as transforming as the present is changing their once thriving and throbbing industrial space into commercial and residential high rises. The remnants of mills and chawls in Parel remind of the transition now underway, and the sight from the Point Of View lounge affording these views and realisation is as sobering as it is elevating, more so as the old order giveth to the new.

Bathed in the lights that lit up the Point Of View lounge later that evening, conversations around wine and David Rocco’s upcoming series on India floating on the stiff breeze, I lifted my face to the stiff breeze and was quickly counselled by the warmth of the gathering even as I took in the city lights beyond the parapet, the glowing lights wrapping the cityscape were laid out like a mass of glittering necklaces spread outward like a giant ripple that refuses to peter out with time.

Note: Look out for David Rocco’s India Series on FOX Traveller sometime in September later this year for his on the good life in India.